Mass Effect:Crysis
by Deus-Sigma
Summary: "Welcome to the New World. Same as the Old World." Rated M for Violence, Blood/Gore, Language, and Sexual Content. AU. Combination of Crysis, and Mass Effect Universe's. Ignores most Crysis 3.
1. Purgatory

**QUICK AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

My first Fan-fiction ever and it involves my two of my most favorite sci-fi games, Crysis, and Mass Effect, now this Chapter is part sort of a prologue that will set up the story._  
_

Now I realize that alot of crossover fics with Mass Effect have it to where a crew, or character ends up in the other universe by an anomaly, or they are discovered by accident, and while I do not mind this at all. I wanted to try something a little different.

Now First off its Alcatraz who's in this story, but he's refered to by everyone as Prophet, to which he doesn't care as he technically is Prophet as he holds Prophets memories, and knowledge.

As stated in the description this story will combine the universe of both Mass Effect, and Crysis, and for story reasons the nano-suit Alcatraz has is the only one in existence.

I'm setting the story **AFTER** the events in **Crysis 2**, and **Crysis Legion** ignoring the **MOST** events of **Crysis 3**, but shortly before the events of Mass effect 1, which it will lead into, but not before I can properly introduce Alcatraz the Mass Effect side.

However it should also be noted that despite the fact that I just said it ignores the events of Crysis 3, this is due to the story being released prior to Crysis 3 so it'll ignore Many parts of the games story, but I will make references to the some of the events in the game, mainly anything involving the the Nano-suit.

* * *

_**"The Suit changes all the rules"** Prophet couldn't have been more right if he tried, death, disease, hunger, sleep, hell even the ability to piss, and shit was taken from me by this suit; this must be how Hargreave felt for all those years, a purgatory, unable to die, yet never truly able to live._

_No wonder the old man was so thrilled to be able to die at long-last; immortality is a bitch._

_Thankfully, I had Prophet, or whatever he was to keep me company; I found a person to talk to helped keep ones sanity intact, of course with everything I've seen, and done I'm not sure if what I had could be called sanity._

_I wondered how long ago it had been since I fought the ceph, stopped them at New York, then, years later I returned to New York, hell bent on hunting down each of the fuckers in CELL, blaming them for the condition I was in, and what they had done to New York._

_But ever since I entered this limbo I wondered to myself, was that really the reason why I killed them? Or was I just pissed at what they had turned me into, a "dead-man walking" as Prophet put it, or what they had done to New York city in my absence._

_I guess at this point it didn't matter._

_I don't know where I am; last I remember I was in the middle of a firefight within the Ceph ship in the middle of Lingshan Island__, __the year had been 2050._

_Incursion ships had begun to appear all over the world, and I was lucky to be in the aid of Micheal Sykes, better known as Psycho as Prophet knew him, another Nano-suit user, he helped take down the various incursions around the world, all the way up to Lingshan Islands.  
_

_Good man, wished I had told him I wasn't the real Prophet, but no point in killing myself over missed issues._

_By that point the army had been able to duplicate, and use the spores my suit had made to take most emerging Ceph ships, although the casualties were still high, roughly ten thousand per fight._

_Strangely, their forces seemed to have dropped significantly from what it had once been. _

_Then as I was 'spreading the news', as I liked to call it otherwise knowing as sending their spores right back at them, I remember a brief, but powerful light, much like the one in New York, only then the suit went dark, and so my endless purgatory began._

_I stopped counting time; I found that it only serves to drive you fuckin' nuts after a while._

_Sometimes I wished I still had control over the suit; at least my right hand anyways, I recall having a pistol, a majestic, if I'm correct, figured that'd end it._

_Then again didn't work for Prophet, and he had the Nano-suit off._

_Still, I wondered how long it would be until the suit finally shut-down, taking me right with it to wherever it is humans go when we die, or in the worst case scenario the suit could already be dead, and I could be just like Prophet had been, stuck in the body of a bio-Nano suit for the remainder of my existence._

_I hoped to god, Allah, the ceiling cat, whoever the hell was listening, that someone would end my existence once, and for all; or at the very least have someone else put on the Nano-suit, have someone else to talk to for a change._

_"No offense Prophet" I said speaking out to the African-American Marine wearing the Nano-suit, save for the helmet._

_I always did wonder why he appeared with it on, pretty strange if you ask me, but who'em I to talk about strange._

_Just like Prophet I appeared in my Nano-suit, but I wasn't sure if I had my helmet or not._

_"No problem Marine, I'd want another pal if I was stuck with you for several years" joked Prophet, I chuckled a bit in response, one of the few luxuries left to me after everything the suit had changed in me._

_"Hey, Prophet tell me again that story about the first time you fought the ceph" I told him, as he merely cocked his head back slightly._

_Honestly, I don't know why I asked him to tell that story, there really wasn't any real reason other than my need to kill time._

_"I've told you that story how many times now…" he replied jokingly attempting to count all the times with his entire hand, while I just rolled my eyes._

_"**Five thousand times** alright, now quit being an ass and just tell the damn story" I said to him, almost shouting, as he merely chuckled._

_"Hehe… Hold your horses' kid, I'm just playin' with you, 'sides you have my memories don't you?" He said raising his hands briefly._

_"Now, let's see if I remembered the year, It was 2020, I was working for CELL at the moment as an agent for the CIA, I led a team of Nano-soldiers called Raptor-Team, The team consisted of five members, myself included, Aztec, Jester, Psycho, and Nomad all had the first generation of Nano-suits."_

_I remembered Psycho from when I returned to New York, the man was an absolute killing machine, and at the time he only had the first generation Nano-suit._

_I wondered what happened to him. Hopefully he got his suit off of him._

_"We had arrived at Lingshan Islands, which had been taken over by the Korean forces. The CIA wanted us to evacuate a team of American civilian archaeologists, led by Dr. Rosenthal, while also securing any data we might have deemed valuable, only I had I different reason for being there" he told me his voice becoming more seldom._

_"When I was still working for Cell, Hargreave, had told me that he wanted me to investigate Lingshan, said to procure any knowledge on the Ceph, and I should've known there was more than that, that he knew more than he let on." said Prophet in a grim tone._

_"The really reason he sent me was that he wanted to see how the Ceph would react to the Nano-suit technology, test the water so to speak, it didn't matter if we died only as long as that sick fucker got the information he need. In fact, he knew what we would find there, and we were still just post-human parts for his war against the Ceph. "_

_"Well, it turns out they didn't like us one bit."_

_"One by one my team started to get killed, first it was Aztec, and a Ceph had torn him apart, absolutely mutilated him, along with several KPA soldiers, not long after I disintegrated the suit in order to make sure it never would fall into the KPA's hands. Then jester died, something took him, and despite our best attempts to reach him, we only found his lifeless battered body, which I quickly disintegrated aswell."_

_"But, the true moment the shit-hit the fan was I got captured by a Ceph scout, I managed to get away though, but nothing was ever the same again, man."_

_"I learned more about the Ceph in a few hours, than Hargreave ever did in his entire life, you see they hadn't just arrived on earth, they've been around longer than even humans, just buried in the earth for millions of years just sitting there, but the scary part is how fast they adapt to an entirely alien world; you saw the Ceph in New York, they were nothing like the ones on Lingshan, they were more agile, built to climb, to hide, perfect for the city, or earth in general"_

_He was right, the Ceph were adaptive bastards, they made the city their hunting ground, using speed, and maneuvering to flank their enemy, causing them to waste ammo, until they finally moved in for the kill._

_Crude, but highly-effective. _

_But it was more than that grunt units learned tactics that took humans thousands of years to develop in a few short months, perhaps even weeks._

_"I managed to get into their ship, learned about all the places they stored themselves, that the Ceph on the Lingshan islands took energy from nearby source, a large sphere acting as a power sink."_

_" Along the way out, I also grabbed a molecular accelerator, to my surprise I spotted Nomad, he was surrounded by various ceph warriors I managed to save him, after that he quickly returned the favor; getting me out of the growing Ice sphere released by the Ceph ship, which basically froze anything it came into contact with."_

_"We escaped the island, although not without heavy losses, Major Strickland being the most obvious, died fighting a Ceph Hunter, and they were about to nuke the ever loving hell out of it, only I knew it wouldn't do anything except make the Ceph even more pissed off."_

_"So I went back to the sphere, and guess what all that nuke did was make the damn thing grow even larger, pissed the Ceph right over the fuckin 'edge."_

_Yep, nuking someone or something does tend to have that effect._

_"Then an hour later, while on was on the island making my way to the Ceph Ship, I sent a message to Nomad, he told me that the USS Construction had been sunk, but that he had taken out a Ceph Warrior, and that he, along with Psycho, and Dr. Rosenthal, were coming to the island getting ready to take the fight to the Ceph"_

_I knew that was the end of the story, but I also that was more; I never met this Nomad, or Dr. Rosenthal, so something bad must happened to them, or Prophet just doesn't want to talk about it._

_Strange considering the amount of time that's passed._

_"All-right dead-man, let's hear your story" said Prophet as I merely shrugged my shoulders in response._

_"I dunno 'know, I don't think I have a story that involves alien invasions, or a super-suit… oh wait I do, but you've seen it first-hand." I said sarcastically._

_"Tell me one of your Force Recon missions then." He said as looked back on my career._

_"Alright I got one; it was in the year 2022. My team and I were deployed to South America."_

_"We got Intel that said that there was a group of illegal manufactures supply terrorist organizations all over the world, so our mission was simply get in take them out as fast, and quietly as possible, while finding any information see just whole they had been selling to, and for how long."_

_"We arrived at around 3:25 am, near the port that was used to ship the weapons."_

_"The port was decent sized, nothing to large, but still sizable to have several boats, about three, and have several large trucks, it also had held a warehouse which was, if our Intel was correct, the location of the weapons."_

_"When we got closer to there, we quickly established a perimeter to prevent anyone from escaping, as well as to prevent any crates from leaving. There was roughly thirty well-armed men, ten making sure the weapons got on safely, fifteen more searching for any intruders, and five simply standing guard near the crates."_

_"Chino quickly set off a small explosion; this drew the attention of the many of the guards, giving me some time to get into the warehouse, unfortunately some of the guards noticed me, and began to open fire at me."_

_" Hiding behind some cover, it allowed me to set off a flash bang at the group of five guards, quickly discombobulating them, and allowing me to get five clear-shots in with my SCAR, taking three of them down, while crippling two of the others ones."_

_"But, before I could call in that I had the crates secured all hell broke loose, the only thing I could hear was the sound of bullets flying, grenades exploding, in fact you ever played one of the Call of Duty games?" I asked Prophet who shrugged._

_"A little, never got into, to many little bitches moaning all the time" he responded, boy was he right; game was fun, but the people who played sure as hell were annoying._

_"Well, a grenade landed close, giving little time to get to safe distance and I swear to god, that tink-tink-tink sound from the game was almost the exact same sound as the grenade"_

_"Luckily for me, I managed to get away just before it went off, and not a second later did to more guards open fire at me, giving little to no time to take cover behind some nearby crates, peering out just enough to let me get in a few shots, taking them down, they obviously weren't trained for this kind of thing."_

_"Then I got out of cover to move in to secure the warehouse and the fire –fight suddenly stopped, I finally got into contact with Chico, and he told me that all hostiles had been neutralized, at that moment I was damn proud, and that's why we're Force Recon." I said with a smirk as I finished my story._

_"Hmmm... Shorter than I remember, you sure you don't want to tell me how you celebrated by drinking an entire bottle of tequila by yourself, or when you got dared by Chico to drink from the strippers belly button... heh you had some good times huh dead man?" said Prophet causing me to scratch the back of my head errr... the Nano-suits helmet in some embarrassment.  
_

_He was right, I had skipped over a lot of detail, but personally I wasn't the kind of person who went into every little detail, especially when it came to talking about myself, besides Prophet sure as hell skipped a ton of details._

_"Lets talk about something else Prophet, I really want to pass some time, not that it really matters at all, just want something to think about" I told Prophet who slowly nodded his head.  
_

_"Yeah, I can get that; So what do you think Nathan is doing?" asked Prophet.  
_

_"Knowing him, he's probably writing conspiracy theories on my disappearance" I replied to him, earning a chuckle from the veteran soldier.  
_

_"The last time I saw him was about two weeks before I arrived in the bio-dome in New York, he told me that he was working on a way to get the Nano-suit off of me without killing me, but I didn't really care to much for it. I made peace with what I had become." I told Prophet._

_"How was he doin'?" replied Prophet._

_"For an 80 year old, fine, he was getting a little senile, but I guess that happens after you live through all the shit he did. Anyways he told me that he was moving to Alaska, to get away from all the aliens and shit, kept telling me he was going to find a way to get me out of the suit. I hope he's alright or at least lived a good life." I told Prophet._

_"And what about Major Strickland's daughter, Tara, how was she holdin' up?" asked Prophet, and with that I thought fondly of the CIA agent, remembering how she pulled my ass out the fire at Roosevelt Island._

_"She did well for herself; she was still in the fight against the Ceph, and C.E.L.L. although she wasn't in the fight, she mainly helped give me, and the military forces strategic advice, and data concerning either the Ceph, or C.E.L.L."_

_"Well, she Strickland's girl, so it's no wonder she'd still keep fighting, I'm more or less surprised she made it to old age; her family always has that impulse to put themselves in danger for the sake of others" said Prophet obviously referencing Major Strickland's sacrifice at the Lingshan Islands._

_"She's tough as hell, should've given her the Nano-suit. Would've ended the Ceph-Human war a lot earlier." I told him._

_"Maybe, but then again she wasn't the one dying in front of me, 'sides your one of the best marines I've ever seen, maybe a little better than Nomad." Replied Prophet._

_"Thanks." I replied at the compliment, from Prophets Memories Nomad was a virtual one man army; took on Ceph that made the Pinger look like a fat ladies purse, and virtually annihilated the KPA forces on the island, although I could boast the about doing the same to C.E.L.L. forces._

_And then there was a strange silence, almost an awkward one, scratch that it was an awkward, but hell it had always been like this._

_One second I would start a conversation with him, looking fondly at our combined memories, but the next second I would just stand there wondering what I or he was going to say next._

_Then just as I thought that was it, that is was just another day, another hour, another minute, in the same place, nothing changing, nothing ever happening, just me and Prophet talking about the past in no order,__I felt something._

_A beat almost, one almost faint to my hearing; it obviously was my heart._

_My blood was somehow pumping through it, but that would mean that-  
_

_**-SUIT REBOOTING- **spoke SECOND, causing me to stand absolute disbelief._

_What the hell?_

_"Heh… looks like you just got a second chance dead-man, don't waste it" said Prophet as the surrounding are began to turn from its dark, blue and black scheme, slowly being replaced with that of a bright light, much like when I used the Nano-suit to send the spores back against the ceph._

_The slowly Prophets Entire body began to be encompassed by the light, and I watched as he smirked, nodding approvingly at me, almost as if knowing what was going to happen next._

_Then I felt it. The sudden jump of my pulse. The suit once again allowing my blood to pump through my body.  
_

_Adapt. Survive. Engage._

_For some reason I knew in my heart, that these words would have to carry me through whatever happened next._

_Then I heard, in a groggily sound someone talking  
_

_"Prep Prophet for suit removal, illusive man wants it analyzed as soon as possible" said an obvious male voice.  
_

_Fuck.  
_

* * *

Hows that for a first chapter huh?

**R/F/F _(_Short for Review, Favorite, or Follow)**


	2. Rebirth

_**NOTE: THIS AUTHORS NOTE MAY HAVE SOME SPOILERS SO BE WARNED**_

Sorry I took soooo long, I hope you may find it in your hearts to forgive me, alas I have a life outside of fan-fiction, regrettably, and with the seasons, finals, and job hunting I haven't been able to churn out as much work as possible.

However I will make it my goal to update more regularly because 15 reviews for one chapter does things to mans confidence, and work-ethic.

Also as you may have noticed this chapter is much longer than the last one, as every chapter from this point on will be 6000-7000 roughly give or take a few exceptions like this.

With that out of the way enjoy.

* * *

Slowly I opened my eyes, or at least I think I did; all I could see was utter darkness.

**-SUIT INTEGRITY CRITICAL. ATTEMPTING TO REPAIR SYSTEMS. REPAIR SYSTEM INITIATED. STANDBY- **spoke the suit, although I ignored it focusing on regaining my vision first just as the darkness began to slowly fade away.

The first thing I noticed was a bright light, but judging from they way my body felt I must be sitting.

I couldn't hear anything for a couple of moments, then until I slowly began to hear fuzzy, and unclear mumbling, damn the suit must really be taking its time.

"Jesus, is this guy even human, I mean he's got the body of a well-built human male, but its filled with synthetic elements, Nanites. Look at the flow of nano-bots flowing throughout his system, their increasing its effectiveness, and look... the muscle cells, the Nanites are actually increasing muscle density and strength." added spoke a voice

"From his nerves, blood cells, you name it. Everything about him has been augmented beyond humanly possible. Amazing." added the voice.

"This suit must really be something huh?" spoke a voice, another male obviously, although from the tone of his voice I was sure he was young

Sure is, you just have to know what your giving up.

"Yeah, no wonder The illusive man wants it so badly; with it maybe the council will start paying more attention to humans." said another one, once again male, but noticeable older due to the gruffness in his voice.

"Hey what did happen to the Nano suits? I mean if they're that friggen' powerful why doesn't Cerberus just make more?" asked the younger one.

"Didn't you pay attention in history? Near the beginning of the Ceph-Human war, during the New York invasion, Roosevelt Island was basically leveled by the Ceph, and as it turns out Jacob Hargreave the creator of the Nano-suits was on the island when it was destroyed, so there went the creator of the Nano-suits "explained the older one, guessed he payed attention in his-

Wait history?!

Dammit it all.

As more of my vision came steadily back to me and the first thing I noticed was that the HUD was scrambled.

I was able to block out the bright light, and focus on the two men in front of me, both getting medical-esque tools no doubt for the suit removal,

**-SUIT REPAIR AT 25%-**

"I still don't get how the Nano-suit was lost though? I mean even if Hargreave died wouldn't someone have the data to make more?" once again asked the younger male, smart one that one.

"Because Roosevelt Island held all of the Nano-suit data, how to make it, the materials needed, etc; turns out Hargreave didn't trust anyone, especially the governments of that time, with that kind of information so the man took it to his grave. This and the fact that the Army at the time stopped funding the Nano-suit project, because of the fact that it didn't pass the safety tests." Replied the older one, just as I steadily re-gained the ability to move my head, which went unnoticed by them.

"Yeah, but didn't the Koreans make a Nano-suit to?" commented the younger male.

"Yup, they first deployed em 'at Lingshan; although they weren't as advanced the American made ones, ironic right. Well, it turns out that the suits were only deployed at Lingshan, and because most of the forces died on Lingshan no one ever reported their functionality." I began to move my fingers, making only small twitches at first.

"Eventually, The Koreans lost interest in them too, mainly due to the time needed to make them, and the safety tests have failed as well, , and Hargreave stole all data on their Nano-suits, he was pissed that someone had given the Koreans the info needed to make Nano-suits, leaving only a handful of Nano-suit users left, ol'Prophet being one of 'em" Oh joy.

"And back when C.E.L.L. almost had control of the world C.E.L.L. hunted down the last Nano-suit users, and_ 'skinned'_ them, tearing the suits right off of them; most of the suit-users died, the skinning process was like ripping an arm off of yourself. Although some of the old history books mentioned some of them lived" explained the older man, and damn did he pay attention to detail, of course he forgot good 'ole Psycho.

"Well what happened to them?The suit users" asked the young man.

"No one knows, but its assumed that they were lost after Prophet destroyed the New York Nano-dome, but I heard some took the fight back to Lingshan." explained the Older-man, before his eye got a suggestive look to them.

"But, well, you wanna the real reason why they never tried to get the Nano-suit program back up?" asked the older man.

**-SUIT REPAIR AT 48%-** come on keep on talking just a little more time

"But, well, you wanna the real reason why they both canceled the Nano-suit program?" asked the older man.

"How come?" replied the young man, obvious wanting to know judging by the tone of his voice.

"Because overtime the suits didn't just stay suits, they merged with the users, turning them into something else entirely. Look at Prophet heart and lungs are broken, near destroyed, spinal damage, vocals damn near non-existent the guys a corpse, but the suit made him into a fricken' living weapon, he took out god knows how many Ceph, and the C.E.L.L. forces, it's unbelievable, but like I said it turned him into something else; you don't get power like that without paying some price" damn right, the suits bonded with their users melding to their flesh, taking over simple tasks such as breathing, urinating, and the like.

Unless, of course, you had an under suit like Prophet did.

"But should we really be doing this? I mean I know he's dead but, he's Prophet for crying out loud; the man practically saved the world from the Ceph and C.E.L.L. he's not just a hero, he's THEE hero." asked the younger male, nice to see someone has respect for the dead.

"I know he did, any human with any self-respect knows that, but he's dead, there's no point in grieving for someone who's been dead for almost one-hundred, and tweny-seven years; 'sides I have orders directly from the The Illusive Man, get the suit off of him, and send it in to get examined. After that they'll give his body back to the Alliance." replied the older one as he grabbed what looked like a laser scalpel, the tip of which became an orange-red color, obviously being extremely hot; extreme heat was very useful in removing a nano-suit from someone.

But not today.

**-SYSTEM OVERRIDE-**

Come on just about there, I thought to myself, as the suits HUD was still scrambled, but I managed to get the power system again, although it flickered from 100% to various other percentages.

Just then the older man began to press the scalpel into my chest.

I suddenly felt the laser scalpel upon my Nano chest. Hurry, at least give me some protection.

**-MAXIMUM ARMOR- **

With that thought the suits power was diverted to the CryFibril nano-muscle to protect me from the laser scalpel by tightening of the suit's outer weave and increasing suit armor density.

This caused a slight blue-glow to flow through the suit's fibers as it channeled power dampening energy.

As a result of the maximum armor, the scalpel broke causing them both look back in surprise, obviously not knowing that my suit was very much functional.

"It can't be… dear god… get Banes he needs to know about-GRPHH!" choked the older man as right my hand sprung from the chair, and coiled around his neck, his hands frantically trying to get my grip to release, and just like that the suits energy faded. What the hell.

"Sorry, I don't like the idea of being cut open" I said to him in Prophets Voice, lifting the man clear off his feet, fear, and nervousness obviously coursing through him.

Quickly I glanced around the room, it looked like a medical room, although much more advance; holo graphic monitors, or at least that's what I thought they were, holo-graphic keyboards, and a machine that had my vital systems just by my presence on the table.

Guess I really was in the future, or the suit is giving me a very realistic dream.

I'd go with the latter.

"Where am I?" I asked the man releasing my grip slightly as to allow him to properly answer me, bringing him closer to my helmet, letting him stare directly into my red-visor.

"S-security! Subject Prophet is awake! I repeat Prophet is awake w-GRRAH!" shouted the younger man upon he smashed by the body of the older man, although not enough to kill either one of them, but sufficient enough to render them unconscious.

What was that just now that wrist thing?

Guess I'll have to ask him later.

Quickly I pulled myself from the chair, only to immediately fall to the ground on my hands, and knees, my body to used to the nano-suits power amd therefor unprepared for the weight of the suit.

**-SUIT REPAIR AT 89%- **Dammit hurry up,and work, I'm a sitting duck here; all the while I attempting to push myself up.**  
**

And as if the universe was giving me a further 'screw you' I heard a hiss sound, followed by several footsteps.

Glancing up I saw three humans, all in a combat armor or something, the colors being a combination of white, black, and orange; they didn't seem to be packing any serious heat on them, just pistols.

"Shit, talk about a rude Patient" commented one of them, his feet right in front of my face, which currently faced the ground, but slowly I pulled my head up, and noticed a pistol dead-center at my head.

I figured he was the leader of this three man squad; he was securing me, while the other two were checking up on the unconscious men.

"So your Prophet huh? Always figured you'd be a little taller." mused the man, his gun never moving from its deadly position, just then he pressed his right index, and middle finger to his helmet.

"I've have Prophet secured, we have two injured scientists, but no major damages. What should I do with Prophet?" He asked obviously speaking through the radio located within his helmet.

A few seconds passed, although for me they were much slower than they had to be.

**-SUIT REPAIR AT 97%- **hurry the FUCK up come on.

"Understood." He said, removing his hands from his helmet, glancing down at me.

"Sorry Hero, but this is the end of the line for you, no hard feelings alright? Believe me I'm a big fan." he told me in mocking sort of tone.

"Why don't you shut the fuck up, and do it already." I told him, looking up to see the barrel on the gun right in my face.

Then as he pressed on the trigger, the world began to slow down for me; so this is how it ends huh? All those battles, all the Ceph I had put down, the impossible odds I had faced, and now I get killed by some no-name jackass with a gun.

Heh, funny.

Suddenly I heard the door open, the other two guards immediately turned, and pulled out their own pistols, but before they could doing anything, they suddenly frozen in place, a blue aura surrounding their they before being shot at by whomever entered the room, after several lethal shots to the head the the aura faded, and both of the guards bodies fell lifelessly to the ground.

Then the guard who had been facing me quickly turned around, and once again the world seemingly slowed down.

**-SUIT REPAIRS COMPLETE. DNA PROFILE REINITIALIZATION-** spoke the suit as the hub quickly returned, the suits energy systems returning to one hundred percent just as fast.

I grinned under the helmet.

I am back bitches.

And before either the guard, or whoever entered the room could react, I jumped from my previous position, and grabbed both the sides of the the guards helmet.

With a simple twist, I twisted his head entirely backward, the sickening sound of the neck snapping filling my ears, his body shaking from the assault, before I tossed it aside as if it had been a piece of trash.

"No hard feelings alright?" I said to the now dead guard, before I glanced up to my supposed 'savior'.

Well, more like saviors.

It was a squad of three, all human, two of them female, and one of the male, all of them had assault rifles, but not any model I could recognize.

My eyes were drawn to, who I guessed was the leader of this squad judging by the way she was in-front of the others, the first woman mainly due to the fact that the aura that once surround those two guards briefly surrounded her, before fading as well.

Was she the one who caused it? If so I'd better watch what I say.

It looked as if she might have been from Caucasian descent The first thing I noticed was her hair, which was a shade of rose-red, the nose area of her face was covered in almost invisible freckles, and her eyes were a shade of green or jade, I can't really tell.

Quite the looker, if I might say.

She had an armor that was radically different than what the guards had on; hers was less bulky, and seemed to be suited for quick assault, but it had style to it, dominated heavily by black, with a white, and red line running from her right shoulder all the way down to her wrist.

What does N7 stand for I wonder?

The other two had similar armors, with the mans being slightly more bulky, and instead of the N7 symbol they had N4s' perhaps to show lower ranks.

The other woman seemed to be of African descent, her skin tone being slightly lighter than someone like Prophet, her hair was in bun as opposed to the other woman's more free hair, and she seemed to be more stern than the other two, although this could be because of the strange blue owl-goggles she had on.

The Man was also Caucasian, and strangely reminded me of Chino.

"Well, aren't you gonna introduce yourselves?" I asked them breaking the awkward silence.

"2nd Lieutenant Jane Shepard with the Alliance military, this is Service Chief Alexandra Thomas" said Jane gesturing to Alexandra, who gestured a simple hello by knocking her head back slightly.

"And Gunnery Chief Ryan Cortez" she said gesturing to Ryan.

"Pleasure to meet you sir" said Ryan, a hint of awe in his voice.

"I'm Pr-"

"Prophet, we know" spoke Alexandra cutting me completely off, heh, nice manners that one; already could tell me'an her were gonna be best friends forever.

"It seems everyone does." I said to them, while gesturing to the dead guards.

"Trust me everyone does know you, well humans anyways." said Jane, promptly tossing me the pistol that had been holster to her side, which I promptly caught.

"Kind of small, do yo-" and before I finished what I was saying, the gun suddenly unfolded, the nozzle, and the handle becoming much more appropriate to what I'm used to.

Must be how all these guns work; It was sleek, its color dominated heavily by a silver, and black scheme, with several traces of red as well.

For a pistol it was quite big, reminded me of the Majestic Mark II, wondered if it was as deadly.

"Its the M-3 Predator, a heavy pistol that's standard issue, good against armor, not so good against biotic, and kinetic barriers. By the way guns don't work how the y used to; I'll spare you a long explanation, basically guns now generate ammunition from a block of metal and fire projectiles the size of a sand grain. So you never run out of ammo, but the drawback is if you fire it too much it can cause the weapon to overheat, rendering it useless until it manages to cool down." she explained to me, kinetic, and biotic barriers? Really must have made improvements while I was gone.

"What are kinetic, or Biotic barriers?" I asked her, and she smirked slightly, the kind of smirk an adult might give when educating someone less smarter then they are... like a kid.

Oh joy.

"Kinetic barriers invisible shields that are projected from tiny emitters. These shields deflect small objects traveling at rapid velocities. This affords protection from bullets and other dangerous projectiles, but still allows the user to sit down without knocking away their chair." she said explaining it quickly.

"Alright well then whats the difference between biotic ones?" I asked

Then suddenly her entire body was covered in a blue aura.

"I am biotic; short version, think of a jedi, without a fancy sword." she answered, as the blue aura disperesed from around her body.

Then she turned around, she was more than likely gonna tell her squad what the next step was.

"Alright now if you don't have anymore questions, lets get moving; every Cerberus member on this station probably knows we're here so we need to get back to the hangers as quickly as possible. Ryan have you dealt with the camera system?" asked Shepard to which Ryan nodded, so the bastards that were trying to cut me open were from this Cerberus.

"Yes Ma'am, unless we start a firefight, or more Cerberus guards come down here, its like we're not even here." responded Ryan, I liked him already, smart kid.

"Alright." said Jane before she turned around to my direction.

"Prophet, our main objective is to get you out of here, and back to friendlier turf. Cerberus isn't stupid they're more than likely to send a team to investigate, or in the worst case, they already know we're here. So be ready for whatever they throw at us alright?" she asked/ordered me, and without control, I chuckled a little, much to her confusion.

"Believe me I'm always ready." I told her, trying my best not to sound like a cocky-mother fucker, instead she smirked in response.

"Well than lets get moving; sooner we get off this station the better." She said as her squad pulled out their weapons, nodding in response before doing so.

"Shepard, give me a sec' lets see what these bastards are up to." I told her, kneeling down to the dead guards body, and pulling of his helmet from his lifeless head.

I examined it for a moment, before finding what looked like a ear-piece located on the right side of the helmet, and pressing my fingers onto it.

**-RADIO HACKING STANDBY… RADIO HACKING COMPLETE-**

_"This is Banes, I want every available guard at Research Wing, to immediately investigate room CR, I don't know whats happened there, but I've lost contact with both the scientists, and the guards that went their to previously investigate. Note Prophet is Alive. I repeat Prophet is ALIVE, and it appears as though he's been able to disable the Camera system Approach with extreme caution, and do not confront alone. Banes out."_ said a man, now know as Banes, and from the tone of his accent he was British.

"Shepard, good news, and bad news." I began.

"The good news it that they don't know you, or your team is here; bad news is that they know I'm up and walking, and their sending more forces this way to take me down." I explained to her, her face was expressionless, but I could tell she was thinking of something.

Then she brought up that strange orange-hologram arm thing, and typed something in, or at least it looked like it to me.

"There's are two elevators down the hallway at the main research wing, its our best way to reach the hangers, but chances are its where the bulk of the guards will be located; we won't be able to keep our cover if we engage them" said Shepard as her arm-thing vanished.**  
**

"Then don't, I'll take them on, you just watch my back, and give me assistance when needed." I proposed causing Ryan, and Alexandra to look at each other as if they had been listening to some lunatic.

Jane crossed her arms, and gave me that look that said _"Are you fucking kiddin' me?"**  
**_

"Look, you said that there are two elevators right? Each one leading to the hangar, chances are if we use either one of them, they'll send more guards our way, I can take one of the elevators to a level far from the hangar, and handle the bulk of them; I'm sure you'll be able to take care of what little forces they send, from there secure an escape vehicle, and get off this... umm... where are we at exactly" I asked her.**  
**

"In a space station within the Hades Nexus System, several thousand light-years from the Solar system." she responded, and I also wanted to scratch the back of my he-err.. nanosuit helmet.

Hades Nexus... Space Station... Why the hell didn't I figure that?

"... Right ... anyways after you secure a vehicle, I'll try to clear an evac-are for you to pick me up, and with that we'll head off from where it is you came from." I told her, only for her to simply refuse.

"Too risky, there's still the chance security might spot us, or that Cerberus might have more than enough people to send our both yours, and our way." She replied, causing me to let out a sigh of frustration at the situation.

"Remember what you told me? This place seems is more of research station then anything else, there more than likely more scientist's, and researchers than there are guards." I told her.

"At the same time I doubt the guards are going to be packing any serious heat, plus there's the advantage that Banes, who I can only guess is the head of this station, doesn't know you, or your squad even exist, and I doubt he'll put as much attention into securing you three than he will me" I explained to her, though I figured she might already know that.

"That gives you, and you squad an advantage of getting to the hanger with minimal effort." I continued as Shepard glanced briefly at the ground considering my plan.

"Yeah, but I doubt Banes will be willing to guess which elevator we're on, he'll probably shut them both down unless..." Quickly she turned her head to Ryan.

"Ryan you think you can reactivate the camera inside which ever elevator Prophet uses

It was an order.

"Fine, now clear out, we've spent to much time talkin'." she said as she turned around, and her team left the room, I followed well behind them

As we left the room, the first thing I noticed was that we were in a massive hallway, with various doors filling the passage to the end of the hallway, the end of the hallway being a door itself.

The closest thing I could compare the halls of this station to, would be the area in Roosevelt where Hargreave had attempted to remove the suit from me; overall it had that futuristic look, kinda like the ones in those sci-fi movie, and games.

Strangely many of the doors, even the one at the end of the hallway, had a red-circle esque symbol in front of them, perhaps to show that they locked, though I'm sure anyone could figure that out.

"Shepard, what is this station used for?" I asked her, passing several of the locked rooms in the process.

"Not really sure. From what Alliance Intel told us, they figure it's used to reverse engineer any tech Cerberus deems valuable, and then repurpose it for their own use, but we can't be absolutely certain" She replied honestly.

"Makes sense why they would have all these rooms locked then." I stated glancing briefly at another locked room.

"Whatever they're doing here, they won't be here for long; after we get off this station, we're blowing this place to kingdom come." Stated Alexandra, briefly glancing back at me.

"Sounds like you have a grudge against these guys?" I commented, causing her to glance back at me.

"You have no idea." She replied in a low monotone voice, devoid of any sort of emotion.

I put off the thought of asking her what Cerberus had done to her; this was neither the place nor the time, and besides I doubt she would tell me anything if I asked her.

Finally we reached the end of the hall-way, and got the last door which it also locked like the other ones, go figure.

"Ryan, can you unlock that door?" asked Shepard, as Ryan kneeled down in-front of the door, that wrist object appearing, and the red-icon turning orange as various codes began to fall into place.

"Just need'a second Shep. Hacking doors is a little more complex than, re-wiring an entire surveillance system, believe it or not." joked Ryan as more of the codes began to fall into place.

Jane nodded before she turned to face me, and Alexandra.

"Listen up, from this point on we need to maintain absolute stealth, do NOT engage the enemy unless necessary, our main objective is to give Prophet as much cover as possible without directing any attention to our location is that understood?" ordered Shepard, this question being more of an order.

"Yes Ma'am." replied Ryan, and Alexandra simultaneously.

The we heard the sound of the door open, and without wasting entered the room, quickly surveying an locations for Shepard, and her group to hide.

The door quickly opened, revealing a quite spacey room with various computers, vials, table that had strange looking tools, as well as strange looking tech, strangely however there was no-one here.

I noticed I was on a sort of up-level that overlooked the lab, there were also some stair cases to both my left, and right, which conveniently had plated railings that offered more that enough cover or Shepard's team.

But then I saw it, right in the middle of the science lab dead on a table, something I thought was nothing but a distant memory.

There, right in the middle of the entire room was the body of a dead Ceph.

Judging from the armor it was a Guardian unit; its silvery-metallic armor a cross between that of a Ceph Stalker and a Ceph Grunt but they also wore special helmets like the ones used by the Ceph Commander, and much like most ceph a Guardian Unit's tentacles protrude from their exposed area. However, their tentacles are colored black instead of pink or red.

Normally after the re-purposed spores attacked the Ceph, it heavily-damaged their tech, leaving it to crumble or rust, completely unsalvageable, so how did Cerberus get their hands on one.

**-WARNING HOSTILES INCOMING-**

First escape, and then ask questions.

Then the two elevators doors opened, must have been the guards, great timing.

**-CLOAK ENGAGED-**

With that I vanished from sight, and walked over to the railing Shepard, and her squad looking confused as to my disappearance.**  
**

There roughly a dozen of them all together, some carried with them what looked like assault rifles.

Still cloaked I activated my tactics system, I quickly tagged five of them, all were less armed then the other group, but I still shouldn't take any chances.

"Alright men listen up you heard Banes, no killing, if you spot Prophet try to take him down as quickly as possible, remember he may be cloaked, but he can't get past all of us." said who I figured was the leader.

Oh how wrong you are.

As more of the guards began to span out, I noticed that about five of them began to come near the railing, roughly 10 feet; about two of them had assault rifles, while the other three had pistols.

Moving a foot back, I jumped from the railing, quickly disengaging the nano-suits cloak mid-air

"ITS PROPHET!" yelled one of the guards as the quickly turned their guns to me, and began firing at me.

Got it covered.

**-MAXIMUM ARMOR-**

Now the bullets began to simply bounce off of me, eliminating the shooting issue.

And the as I began to descended downward I reeled my fist back, and fell down to the group striking the ground with a thunderous punch which not only drained the suits energies entirely, but managed to kill all of the guards simultaneously, sending their bodies flying, and causing the ground to tremble lightly.

Standing up, I quickly grasped a discard assault rifle, and began to open fire on a guard to my left, his shields quickly flaring as multiple bullets struck it, which thanks to the nano-suits enhanced strength gave me no-recoil whatsoever.

Instantly, however, I felt the some shots hit me from behind, and quickly whizzed around spotting two guards who had managed to put some space between them, and me.

Just as I began firing on them, they we're suddenly hit by that blue-force thing that surrounded Shepard, causing them to being sent into the air, before crash down upon the ground, instantly killing them.**  
**

Then the remaining two began to take cover behind a table located near the elevators, but where stopped as their entire bodies began to spazz out as if in dire pain, and before I could do anything I saw a rocket-like object fly from the railing striking them both, shredding their bodies to pieces with nothing but gory bits, and pieces left afterwards.

I turned around looking at the Shepard's squad, happy that my helmet hid my facial expressions, which would have a flabbergasted one.

Quickly I walked over to the them, they themselves walking over to me.

"Damn..." I said in awe, and really what else could I say?

"Damn yourself; I don't think I see someone dish out that much damage with their fists alone. Kinda makes me jealous that I don't have a nano-suit like yours." Shepard told me another smirk on her face.

"Nano-suit 2.0 actually, and besides, if you had waited you would've gotten a real nice show. But, I appreciate the help, its not every day you get paired up with a squad as skilled as yours" I said before I turned my head to the Ceph on the table, Shepard, and her group following suite.

"That's a Ceph isn't? Never thought I'd seen one up in real life aside from the vids." Said Shepard her voice much more serious that it had once been.

"That looks like one mean motherfucker." commented Ryan.

"Believe me its alot meaner than it looks." I replied in lower tone than I had used previously, before turning away, and walking to the elevators.

"Alright guess this is where we split." said Shepard she stepped infront of me, and pressed what I see was an elevator button, opening the door up, which instead of opening sideways, opened from the top to the bottom.

"Give me a few seconds before you use the elevator; I need to adjust the cameras to just this elevator, wouldn't want Cerberus knowing we're here too huh?" said Ryan bring up that strange arm thing again, and began press various things on it.

"Here, we'll establish a comm link, this way we can make sure we're doing good on each others side. Judging from the schematic this elevator should take you to the archives room, clear that place, and find an airlock." Shepard said her own arm thing came up, and after that she waved it her arm-thing in over me.

**-RADIO LINK ESTABLISHED-**

A few more moments passed, and Ryan gave a thumbs up, so I stepped into the elevator, and pressed a green button that quickly closed it, and began taking me away from the research wing.

_"Control this is Banes, he got out of the research wing, and is currently in an elevator, heading to the archives, I need you to shut it down immediately, I repeat shut down the elevator, and get a team up there waiting for him. Just in case."_ damn this guy was starting to annoy me.

And on his command, the elevator came to a hard stop.

Looking at the elevator level, it showed that I was a floor out or two below the top floor, so I guess I had to do this the old fashioned way, I glanced up, and saw an escape hatched, and with a little jumped, and a little punch I managed to tear it right off from its place, quickly I grabbed onto the ledge of the elevator, and pulled myself up.

It was dark, scratch that, it was pitch black.

**-NANO VISON ENGAGED-**

With that the semi-night vision, l cleared everything, and looking nearby I saw that this was not the a single elevator, there was just five, or hell, even ten, it looked like there were hundreds of them, all leading to different floors, some moving right past, others, and looking over the edge, I could see why.

It looked like a bottomless dark abyss, even the Nano-vision couldn't see where it ended.

"Definitely do not want to fall down…" I said to myself before I turned away from the view, and looked for a path to reach the top floor.

I looked around for some a ladder, but I couldn't find anything, I guess they became obsolete.

However, my tactics system displayed a that an elevator that was nearby, could lead to the Archives, unfortunately as I turned to look at it I noticed, it was not only quite far distance away, but it was also elevated higher, perhaps by two feet.

Yet there was a chance they could break, the Nano-suit wasn't exactly a feather.

Briefly I leaned my head over, looking once again at the fall that awaited me if I failed, moving back to what little space the elevators top gave me; I shifted myself into a running position.

One… two… Three…!

With that I took off, running very shortly, in fact I only took several steps before pushing off the ledge with all the power the Nano-suit had to give, however as I moved closer to the bottom of the elevator, my arms reaching out, it felt as though I almost wouldn't reach it.

Almost.

Suddenly with a large bang I smashed into the last few ladder, bending the metal underneath me, and almost causing me not to grab onto the rungs.

The as I began climbing finally placing my left foot on the rungs, it suddenly broke, causing to squeeze harder on the rungs my hands were latched onto in order to keep myself from falling.

Glancing over my shoulder I watched at the rung descended, into the dark abyss, hitting several of the other elevators, the sound of metal smacking into metal slowly becoming more and more distance as it vanished from my sight.

I carefully kept climbing of the ladder, making sure not to repeat the same mistake, finally pulling myself up onto the top of the elevator.

Pretty sure my heart was beating like hell.

Looking around I quickly located the escape hatch of the elevator, and grabbing it with both my hands, I tore it from its place, tossing it over my shoulder.

I jumped into the elevator, shaking a bit as I landed, due to the weight from the Nano-suits, this elevator lead to the second-to-top floor; this would let me get a better vantage point, hopefully avoiding any possible confrontation with security forces.

Moving to the elevator I looked around for a way to open it, normally I would have opened it by simply prying it open with force, but this door slid up rather than to the sides, and only had one door, one that was seemingly made of glass, or a similar material.

No point in stealth right?

"Direct all power to power-mode" I ordered the suits, and soon my Nano-suit began pulsing a red color.

**-MAXIMUM POWER-** spoke the robotic voice of the suit.

The maximum power mode was originally a passive mode, the strength and speed of the first iteration of the Nano-suit combined into one mode in order to increase combat efficiency.

This would increase my already superhuman abilities even higher, but would consume energy at a more rapid rate.

Curling my right hand into a fist, I reeled it back and promptly punched through the elevator door; shatter the glass with ease, draining my power by about only 5%, and simultaneously setting off the alarms at the same time.

_"Warning. Warning. Unauthorized personal in Archives level B-12."_ Spoke a feminine -esque voice, the alarm system, good, let them come.

Activating my tactics mode, it showed several guards were coming my way from the right side of the room, all of them were fully loaded, and I didn't want to waste any more time.

I smirked.

**-CLOAK ENGAGED- **

_"Span out, locate Prophet, but do not engage."_ I heard one of them say.

_"Why the fuck are we the only ones going after him? He's Prophet! He could take us out before we even know what happened."_ argued another one, the voice of reason.

"I don't know none of this makes sense; we should have just left him, and the Ceph back with the Alliance. Don't know what the Illusive Man was thinking bringing them back to here." Commented another obviously nervous, as he should be.

Whoever, Whatever this Cerberus group was, they had no idea what they had gotten their hands on.

Walking into the area, I watched them split up to cover more area, although even if they did find me, they wouldn't see me coming at them, nor would they be able to stop me for that matter.

However I knew I shouldn't get overconfident; this room wasn't as large as the lab that that I had previously been in, so I couldn't hope to use stealth here if I took anyone down I would have to be in a strategic area in order to keep a strong hold.

Plus I had to be careful this place, it had a large window system with a clear out look to space; it I wasn't in life threatening situation I might have just stood

This area was full of those strange computers, along with several more research tables all in rows of three, with about a dozen or so in each one.

Without wasting time I crouched down, and walked behind one of the tables that were located more in the back of the room, waiting for one of them to pass by.

Lucky for me one of them did, and slowly I began to trail after him as he got farther from the group sight, and finally when he got near a taller table I sprung out, quickly grabbing him by the head, and takin' him to the ground, without anyone noticing.

However, before I could kill him, he managed to fire off a single shot.

"Sonuvabitch" I muttered to myself, just as I crushed his windpipe like a twig.

"Prophet there he is!" shouted one of the guards, and without wasting anytime they all turned and began to fire on me, forcing me to take cover behind one of the research table.

Several of their bullets barely manage to whiz past my head, and as I began planning my next move, suddenly a circle like object landed on the table in front of me.

**-WARNING EXPLOSIVE -**

Oh, shit.

**-MAXIMUM ARMOR-**

I wasted no time quickly preparing myself as the grenade exploded, quickly shielding my head by raising my hands.

Luckily the suit managed to take the force of the explosion; the suits power supply was only drained by about 70%, leaving me with a bit of armor left.

As I disengaged whatever little of the armor was left, I noticed that my gun was trashed. Great.

However, I also noticed that the gun fires suddenly stopped, I guess they must have thought I was dead, glancing over the body of the man I had just killed had his body blown to bits, his arm, and legs missing with several parts of his chest, and head ripped to shreds, his entire armor covered in burnt marks.

These bastards didn't even care If or not they killed one of their own.

As the suit began to grow into the wounds, repairing any damage caused to me by the grenade, I saw on the mini-map on my HUD that the several other guards began to come to my

_"Goddammit, Banes said headshots only!"_ barked one of them; guess I'm still important to them, to an extent.

_"Fuck Banes, the Tin-Man dies now. Banes can have whatever is left, but I'm not letting this fucker live any longer." _replied another guard, his voice full of contempt, and hatred.

"Dumb-ass did you forget there a window right fuckin' here! Do you want to be sucked into space!?" retorted the other

I guess he was the one that threw the grenade at me.

"_Shut it. Both of you. Let's just secure him, and get this thing over with. Rico your with me we'll cover the left side, Coulson, Richard you two cover the right. Is that understood?"_ said another, possibly the leader of this group.

**-CLOAK ENGAGED-**

Let's play.

I moved from where I had once been, making sure to avoid any of the smoke, and took cover behind a table right next to the one that I had been at previously.

There were four of them, but each one was split up into pairs of two, and each duo went over the destroyed table at both the left, and right side, but they only managed to find the mangled corpse of their ally.

"Shit… he isn't here." Said the leader of the group, uncaring at the corpse in front of him, as I slowly walked behind the right side of his squad mates, crouching the entire was to ensure that I both remained as silent as ever, and

As I was behind them, I stood up from my crouching position, and quickly appeared before them.

**-MAXIMUM ARMOR-**

The group leader and his partner both jumped raising their weapons to fire on me, but by this point they had been too late.

I punched one of the two guards in the face, crumpling his helmet, and probably his face as well judging from the crunching noise it made, and when the other one quickly responded by raising his own assault rifle, I merely grabbed it, and kicked him away, sending him flying from where he had once been, and crashing into a table with tremendous force, and as a result causing it cave in.

I suddenly felt several shots strike me in the shoulder, and parts of my arm, and quickly turned my attention to the squad leader, and his last remaining squad mate.

"Come on you piece of shit!" shouted then man known as Rico as he fire shots at, not knowing or forgetting my armor was simply deflecting several of his shots

I aimed the assault rifle at him, and pulling the trigger began to unload several shots into him, the man's shields briefly flashing before the bullets shot into his head, and chest, the man's body shifting from the force of the bullets before he fell back dead on the ground.

Turning my attention to the squad leader I noticed that he had vanished.

"Make things easier for you self and come out we both know how this is gonna end." I told him, I knew I could have found him easily with my tactics system, but I decided not to, and strangely he did come out from a nearby table, dropping his gun, and raising his hand up in the air.

"Heh…. Wasn't sure that was going to work, glad you made things easy." I said my finger ready on the trigger.

"Glad you did too." He replied, wait wha-.

**-WARNING HOSTILES DETECTED-**

Suddenly I heard another door open from the area behind me, and turning around, I saw several more guards who all began to open fire on me, quickly getting rid of whatever armor the suit had left, and forcing me sprint far from them, and take cover behind another table.

I felt the pain of the bullets coursing through me; luckily the suit managed to take the bulk of it, and as the suit both repair itself, while sealing any wounds caused by the firearms, I peered my head slightly out of this side of the table, before I quickly retracted it, a storm of bullets nearly taking off my head.

_ "Prophet…. Prophet do you read me?" _spoke the voice of Shepard through the comm link, though I did hear the sound of shots in the background.

"Yeah I hear ya. Kinda busy at the moment though." They have a turret, a motherfuckin' turret, how the hell did they get one up so fast?

_"It's the future. What'd ya expect"_ spoke the voice of reason in my head, which strangely sounded in Prophets Voice.

_"Prophet we're going to come in a bit late, there's more resistance in the hangar bay then we thought there'd be, nothing we can't handle but you're going to have to hold out a bit longer."_ She said, before I heard her mutter 'fuck' and several large bang noises.

Just fucking dandy.

"Alright, I can last a few more minutes, just make sure to give them hell." God that sounded corny, I thought to myself, as the signal ended.

Then as the suit finished healing my wounds, as well as regaining it energy an Idea struck through my head.

Quickly switching to my tactics mode I saw that the guards had begun to approach me, and that the turret was located on the table.

Normally I could've handle them on my own, but that damn turret switched everything, it ,coupled with the fire of the guards, might more than the armor could handle, might be, but I wasn't willing to take that chance.

Stealth would normally prove to be a smart path to take, but they had already seen where I had taken cover at, and I doubt they would repeat the mistake of throwing another grenade at me.

However I did have a trump card; The Nano-suits ability to hack into electronics.

Still I only ever did this with Ceph technology, more specifically the pinger, and the occasional C.E.L.L. turret, but this was entirely new tech, and I had no idea if I could even hack into it, let alone if the suit could interface with it, but at this point it was my best chance.

Using my tactical mode I managed to locate the turret, which my suit immediately began to hack into, decoding various codes which came down the helmets hub, the nano-suit selecting of the correct codes by pulling them away, and highlighting it in a green color.

**-TURRET REINITIALIZATION COMPLETE-** So my suit from nearly two centuries ago can hack into a turret of the future.

Don't know if I'm happy, or disappointed.

Quickly switching from tactics mode I got out of cover, and began to open fire on them, starting with the guard in the left lane, firing several shots at head, his body quickly falling to the ground.

Then the others began to fire open fire on me just as quickly.

**-MAXIMUM ARMOR-**

With that I began firing on the guards, shooting at them with everything the gun had to offer, and suddenly the turret itself began to open fire on then quickly shredding through the guards like a hot knife through butter, this coupled with my own, rapidly put down the guards, reducing the room to a gory mess.

Then the turret exploded reducing it to nothing, electric rubble.

"Shepard, I'm done up here, be right at Airlock for extraction" I said speaking into the comm link as I begun to walk down the archive room, to where the airlock was located if my Nano-Suit was correct.

Holstering my gun, I suddenly heard various footsteps from behind me.

Quickly I turned around, my finger ready to pull the trigger, and unleash a storm of bullets on whoever was dumb enough to attack me.

I was surprised to find someone besides a guard; he was a man, a bit shorter than I was, probably 5'11", looked to be perhaps in his late 40's, his brown hair combed neatly to the side, with some marks of grey hair present.

The suit he wore seemed to be out of place; it was anything stylish, but it covered his entire body save for his neck, and body, even his hands seemed to be made of the suit.

The man merely stood there looking at me, with an approving smile plastered on his face the entire time.

Slowly my finger eased on the trigger; I never killed civilians, and I'm not starting now.

"Who are you? And where did you come from?" I said to him, my gun still pointed at him.

"I'm sorry we never did get the chance to formally introduce ourselves to one another." Spoke the man in a very thick British accent that I immediately recognized.

"While you yourself need no introduction, Prophet, I however am not as well-known as you are so please call me-"

"Banes" I said interrupting him in the process, and while he looked surprised at my knowledge at his name, he nonetheless resumed his staring at me with his analytical eyes.

"Ah so you do know who I am? I wonder how? Never the less, I am pleased to see that all those years of being… Dead didn't hamper your combat ability." He said signaling to the bloody state of the room.

"Nor did it affect the suits own abilities, and as curious as I am to ask you as to how you managed to reactivate it, I must ask as to whom is aiding you?" asked Banes, clearly knowledge as to the aid given to me by Shepard's' squad, but not as much knowledge as to them per say, to which I merely chuckled.

"And how do you know it wasn't just me? The Nano-suit has a lot of small features that could have gotten me out of you little cutting chair, and all the way here." I responded to which his face looked as If he were going to frown.

"Please do not insult my intelligence; while it is obvious that the nano-suit has various features that would have allowed you to escape easily, I do not understand why you proceed to the archives, rather than head to the hangar. So your argument of being alone doesn't seems like a very intuitive argument does it not." Retorted Banes, showing rather quickly that he was someone not to be taken lightly.

"Maybe I wanted to learn a bit more this day, and age; escaping seems rather pointless without any clue as to where the hell I'm going, or how the currency works this day, and age. Although now I wondering something, is this place always so empty?" I replied back to him, causing him to chuckle.

"Quite, very well if you don't wish to tell me I will implore you no longer, however now I think you may have some questions for me as well." I narrowed my eyes just slightly at this statement.

This made no sense, first he was trying to get me killed; now all of a sudden he was being all buddy-buddy with me? What is he bi-polar?

"Where the hell did you find me? and just what were you trying to do to me? Besides take my suit of my corpse." I asked him holstering my gun.

"I can't answer that; you, and the dead ceph were brought to this station nearly a week ago." Banes answered, honestly I presumed, because at this point he had nothing to gain from this encounter.

"He wanted me to find out as much about the ceph as possible, a rather hard objective given its condition, despite what it's appearance may tell you. However, this was only a side project. The real work was you." He said, and suddenly I remembered how I was almost cut open with my first moments of rebirth.

"Yeah, cutting someone up is quite the work." I replied sarcastically, but he gave me an expression that looked as if he expressed regret.

"I assure you that was only our last option; your suit made it quite impossible to get any sort of readings with our omni-tools, it seemed to have an several adaptive firewalls, defending against whatever sort of hacking we attempted to do, and if we did managed to get past its first firewall, the suit seemed to quickly change its systems to ensure that it did not happen again, to many of the scientists this was a great frustration, to me however it only showed what humanity had lost." he said,the tone of his voice suddenly becoming sullen, and sad, almost like he lost a family member.

"The nano-suit changed everything, look what it had done for you, you been alive for nearly two centuries. It allowed you to defeat the Ceph in New York single-handedly, too take the fight all the way to Lingshand. It takes an ordinary man, and turns him into a living-weapon. I can only imagine what humanity would have been like had we not lost it. Perfect. Strong. Beautiful" He said glancing outside to the vastness of space.

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked, as he turned away and began to leave the room.

"Because in a few short days my life will be worthless, I'd like to leave

_"Prophet! We're here come on lets get the hell out of here now!"_ shouted Shepard through the comm, and I turned away too, walking to the far-right of the room, and stood in-front a door that like the other doors opened automatically revealing another door that seemed to resemble a vault.

The Vault door suddenly opened, and behind was Shepard standing cross-armed, her armor now with visible scratches, and a frown plastered on her otherwise nice features.

This room was a little large, well large enough to land an entire aircraft without much trouble.

I wouldn't even question how the place where the craft came in wasn't sucking anyone out, it was only closed by this blue barrier thing.

She merely cocked her head to the side signaling what I could on figure was a shuttle out of here, however it did remind me strangely of a taxi cab, only this one could fly.

Walking towards it, she began walk along side me.

"Your looking fine for someone who took the **bulk** of their force." commented Shepard in a mocking tone of voice.

"Sorry you don't have a nano-suit; hear their the rage these days" I quipped back at her as the door to the craft opened up from the side showing that it was quite spacious, showing enough room for about 12 people.

As I stepped in, along with Shepard, the door shut, and I immediately felt the craft lift off the ground, and in a few short moments I got a clear view of this station.

"Damn.. thats big." I said to myself under my breath, wondering to myself as to how this Cerberus group manage to build something this large in the middle of space.

I decided to sit down, let out a heavy sigh of relief as I glanced our the window, the stars looking like the lights of a city as you drove by.

"Ryan, take us to the Arcturus Stream, theres someone I want Prophet to meet." Ordered Shepard as Ryan gave a simple 'yes ma'am', and I merely sighed.

Never get rest do I?

* * *

Now please before anyone says anything yes I introduced Commander Shepard in the second chapter, and yes she is well a SHE, so if some of you people have a problem with that, tough crackers,. Sorry for sound like an ass, but there are some people who just moan about a female Shepard.

I'd also like to state that I did not choose to make Shepard a woman just to pair her up with Alcatraz, so I'm putting that to rest before it even takes root, or hold which ever comes first!

I introduced her so early because_(SPOILER!)_ she will not play a huge role in the first few chapters, these are specific to Prophet as they introduce him to the changed humanity, and galaxy as a whole.

I will not overshadow her in-favor of Prophet, but I cannot say more than that without spoiling some massive plot points.

**R/F/F _(_Short for Review, Favorite, or Follow)**


	3. Knowledge

**AUTHORS NOTE:**

Chapter 3! Hell yes! And right on the night before the release day of Crysis 3 how about that!

I hope many of you enjoyed the last chapter, which was much more action that narrative.

However this time the story will take a less action focused approach to let Prophet/Alcatraz get properly acquainted with Shepard, which will consist of quite a bit of information sharing between the two soldiers.

Now with that out of they way please enjoy.

* * *

Sitting down on one of the seats located on the right of the shuttle, I placed my gun next to me, and watched as Shepard walked to the cockpit of the shuttle, and touched the holographic controls on it.

"This is 2nd Lieutenant Jane Shepard; the mission was a success we managed to procure Prophet." Said Shepard speaking into some sort of comm system

"_You've just relieved the hearts of billions of humans Lieutenant, Outstanding job, but I have to ask did Cerberus manage to gain any information on the Nano-suit?"_ I heard another voice speak, this obviously being a man, however an older one.

"Negative. Cerberus knows about as much as we do." Answered Shepard her voice as trained as any soldier should be when talking to a superior officer.

"_Good, let's keep that way. We'll set everything up for Prophets Funeral by the time you arrive."_ Responded the unknown man, to which I got a quick chuckle.

Guess he didn't get the memo.

"I'm afraid that's going to be an issue sir, Prophet isn't exactly dead." Said Shepard, obviously not ready to explain my resurrection.

"_What do you 'isn't dead'?"_ responded the man.

"I mean as in he's here in the shuttle we stole in route to the Arcturus Stream, somehow Prophet was brought back to life by the time we had arrived to retrieve his body, I'm not sure on the detail, but it may have something to do with his Nano-suit." Said Shepard, and there was a pause, in the comm.

Don't blame the man; it's not every day a someone comes to life.

"…_. Shepard, I've never had a reason to not believe you, but this seems far-fetched, even for someone like you."_ asked the man to which Shepard looked over at me, a smirk plastered on her features.

"I'd be disappointed if you believed me that easy, Prophet do you mind introducing yourself." She asked, and letting out a sigh, I stood up from the seat, and walked over to the where she was.

Glancing briefly at the control, I saw the image of the man, who was obviously in his later years, evident by his snow white hair, wrinkled skin, but I could tell he was a soldier, or at least had been, judging by the large scar the was located underneath his right eye that ran all the way to his lip, and also by how worn his blue eyes looked.

Suddenly his blue eyes opened in surprise as I entered his field of vision.

"_Dear god… It is you."_ Said the older man his voice, and face entirely struck with awe.

"Yes sir." I replied, as the man quickly shook his head, regaining his composure, and quickly clearing his throat.

_"How are you doing? Your status I mean? Any physical discomforts you've been MIA for quite the time."_ He asked, and I briefly rubbed the back of my nec-err Nano-suit neck.

"Aside from the rude awakening from those Cerberus tools, I'm fine." I responded, to which the Admiral nodded approvingly.

"If you're wondering at all about his combat skills don't. My squad can vouch for it first hand." Answered Shepard, almost knowing that would be the next question to come form the older man.

He smirked briefly before looking at Shepard

"_Well, then get here as quick, and easy as possible, Prophets… return changes a lot of things, the brass is going to go absolutely nuts over this."_ He said to which Shepard nodded, and then looked at men.

_"Good to have you back Prophet, Hackett out."_

"Ryan give me an ETA until we arrive in the Arcturus stream, and tell the Alliance ships to they can move in and secure that station." Ordered Shepard standing over Ryan who was typing something in the holographic controls of the shuttle.

"Alexandra keep an eye on the scanners; wouldn't want any Cerberus stragglers coming after us." Added Shepard to which Alex merely nodded, looking at her own holographic controls.

"Approximately two to three hours Ma'am until arrival." Replied Ryan his eyes never leaving the controls as Shepard nodded, before walking over, and sitting across of me, the door closing off to the front of the shuttle.

"You've been quiet, what's the matter?" she asked in a both concern, and stern voice, to which I merely chuckled.

"Just because I've been quiet don't mean something's wrong, just thinking to myself about all the shit that just went down a few moments ago. Seems kinda unreal, being in the future, I mean, but I guess I 've done something's that qualify as unreal myself huh?" I responded, to which she smirked.

"Tell me about it." She replied.

"Hey Shepard, uh Jane, mind if I call ya that?" I asked her to which she simply shrugged, not caring how I referred to her as.

"I have some questions if you don't mind, some things I've been wondering ever since you came to my rescue. Matter of fact how did you get into the station so easily? Figure Cerberus would have some sort of radar, or security system?" I asked her.

"Technically I didn't get in through my own means. About five days after Cerberus had managed to get their hands on you, The Brass received an encrypted message that the traced originated from the Hades Nexus system. It said that you and the dead Ceph had been transferred to a research station, and that Cerberus had been attempting to re-discover how to make the Nano-suit, but luckily had made no progress. We were than informed that a vehicle located on the Omega Station, located within the Omega Nebula, would be given to us that would allow a small squad, weapons, and armor in without any problem, but to only bring the essentials, as anything else would draw to much attention, and would more than likely cause them to quickly take action, and move you to a different Cerberus station somewhere in the Galaxy. " Answered Jane, although this made me question this Alliance's judgment skills, trusting a lead they had no idea who it was from.

At this I crossed my arms, and leaned back into the seat, drawing a look from Jane.

"What?" she said, obviously reading my body language.

"I'm sorry, but that all seems way too convenient; why your Alliance, or Brass, didn't question this lead, seems to me like they're too trusting." I told her, revealing the tiny smidge of the paranoia I had built over the years.

"We didn't have much of a choice. Cerberus was quick to clean up any traces of their escape, and the more time that passed the more time we gave them to get a good look at you, so yeah, The Alliance had to trust the information given to us. Besides the alliance has two frigates stationed within the Omega Nebula ready to take out that Station, well, after they scour it for any data." She replied.

I was going to ask her why the Alliance didn't just send its ships in and secure the station a lot faster than a small squad, but then I realized that Cerberus might have spotted them, and quickly ordered me moving to an entire possibly more secure station.

"We'll I'm here, so I guess that information was right after all. Speaking of which did you ever find who sent the message?" however she shook her head.

"fraid' not, if we did I wouldn't know; we lost communication with the Alliance within entering the Hades Nexus system, probably due to interference from the station, but if your if want my opinion I think it was an inside job." She answered.

Makes sense, someone within the station may have sent out the message after contacting someone in this Alliance about my location, maybe even exchanging said information for a large amount of money, as the old saying goes 'Pay a man enough and he'll walk barefoot into hell."

However, it could also be just a likely that there had been an Alliance operative within Cerberus, and had sent out the coordinates in order to keep me from Cerberus.

Speaking of which I mentioned both the Alliance, and Cerberus, yet knew nothing about them save for the latter trying to rip my suit off of me, and the other saving my ass.

"Hey Jane, I talked to Alexandra a bit about Cerberus, but who they hell are they?" I asked her, and she looked as if she contemplated her answer for a bit before answering.

"Very little. They are a self-funded terrorist origination who goals nobody really knows. Alliance Intel claims that they were behind several crimes over the years of 2160, and 2170 such as assassinated politicians, sabotaged starships bearing eezo, and conducting nightmarish experiments on aliens and humans alike, but like I said these are only claims." Answered Shepard.

"Only claims? Well then I guess it's a good thing your Alliance is getting that station, makes we want kick myself for not grabbing Banes, don't know what I was thinking." I said remembering on how I let the man simply walk away without another word.

"Don't worry too much about it; I doubt the Brass is going to get pissed at someone like you." She replied with a smirk as she leaned back.

Then an awkward silence took over, well, not as awkward as it could have been, just I wanted to think about what to ask her next This Alliance, which judging from what she told me was the

"So…. tell me what's like? The Nano-suit I mean, the vids I watched as a kid don't even compare to what I just saw in there. "She asked me, that vids part causing me to raise my eyebrow underneath my helmet.

"Vids? You mean television?" I asked her, only this time she raised any eyebrow, along with a sarcastic tone.

"Well sure, if you want to go all 127 years ago on me" responded Shepard in a teasing tone, oh yeah I'm the caveman around here.

"Hey cut me some slack, I'm been MIA for 127 years, I couldn't keep up with all the new slang, and what-not." I told her, sounding like an old-man in the process, but also causing her to gain another smirk, seems like we were hitting off just nicely.

"Alright, I'll stop. But seriously what's the suit like?" She said, once again asking about the suit, this caused me to both smirk under my helmet, and chuckle a bit.

She was like a kid, eyes full of fascination, and intuitiveness.

I was still abit skeptical with this Alliance she was with, however she did save my ass, and so I figured I could answer her question, and maybe even leave her with some afterthoughts.

"Having the suit on is…. Well… a uh... mixed experience. The power, and flexibility the suit offer is unparalled to anything I could have ever imagined; it gives you strength that lets you perform feats of superhuman levels, like kicking cars like a football , tossing full-grown men like crumpled paper, and the speed it grants lets me hit-an-run like nothing else. This is coupled with the protection the suit gives you, makes you a walking tank. But that's only the tip of the iceberg." I told her, by this point her eyes were completely fixated on me, and pretty sure that she drowned out any other noise.

"The suit can turn you completely invisible, and even muffle your sound, making me even harder to find, and letting me scope out any area without much trouble. Then comes the Nano-vision, this effectively works as both Thermal and Night vision. However, the most advantageous modes of the suit was the Tactical mode, this allows for efficient streaming of vast amounts of battlefield information. This lets me know of anything importance, such as weapons, ammo, objective points and the like, and scan them for details, as well as 'tag' enemies to track them as they traverse the environment. That last part is all thanks to SECOND." I told her as she leaned back into her seat once more, this time with a more incredulous look.

"Second?" she said, obviously confused as to what it might be, or stand for.

I wanted to tell her that It's short for Semiautonomous Enhanced Combat Ops: Neuro-integration Delivery AI, basically a Non-sentient information delivery Artificial Intelligence used by Nano-suit as a data storage, delivery, and transfer device that allows the suit to store its data within my brain, and then to stream that data directly into my brain in snap-quick real time.

But I didn't want tell her all of the suits secrets, well not yet at least, because despite what beginning trust I've started to have in her, I can't risk placing my trust fully in anyone, something I learned during my time in New York.

Plus I didn't want to get too technical.

"It's basically the onboard computer system of the Nano suit, its main function is quickly take in data via the visor, and finger sensors, then to process it in the Tactical Mode." I told her, which left her with an incredulous look.

I also decided not mention SECOND's capability to augment my memory, giving me photographic memory, along with my speaking abilities, giving me knowledge on topics I would normally have no knowledge of, effectively acting as a subconscious real-time encyclopedia.

Or that it was a virtual AI that is essentially a DNA computer, with the ability to process data at 1.5 BIPS.

She wouldn't be interested in any of that.

"So then what's with the whole 'mixed experience' line sounds like the suit doesn't have any flaws. Well aside from the AI, but that's a given." She said to me, and in many ways she was right.

The suit was the most advanced piece of technology in the hands of humanity, well, it might, given the time that had passed, it turned a normal human into a killing machine, it even had the ability to overcome death itself, but that came at a price I knew all too well.

"The suit does more than just give turn something into a walking weapon, it turns them into something else entirely; a dead-man is the name given to people like me, because at some point it's just the suit that's keeping you alive, but there's more, there's always more. I remembered when I returned to the New York after C.E.L.L. had set up the Nano-dome, I realized something changed in me, something changed in the suit, perhaps to late to do anything. The suit adapted too quickly to the Ceph's technology, so much so that it had begun to change who I was, and I allowed it; I had begun to enjoy hunting down Crynet soldiers, not in the way that felt like it had to be done, or in a sick sort of pleasure. No, it was more than that, I enjoyed the thrill of the hunt, the thrill of empowerment, knowing they couldn't do anything to stop me, and over time I stopped viewing them as human beings, I only saw them, as something that needed to be killed. That's when I understood how they thought, the Ceph, it wasn't a matter of if they thought they were better than us, they knew they were our betters; humans were weak frail creatures with clear limitations, while they were not, to them it wasn't an invasion, but rather taking what belonged to them." I said, and suddenly I stopped talking, I must have sounded insane, but suddenly I began to be reminded of how much the suit has changed me.

"Let's just forget about this talk, it's obvious it's not something you want to talk about, and besides you told me quite a bit of, I can live that." Said Shepard, as if knowing that I was delving into some deep shit.

"Besides, didn't you give the Alliance shit for being too trusting? And here you are telling me everything about the suit? Kind of a hypocrite isn't you?" added Shepard smugly, causing me to smile, clever girl.

"I didn't tell you everything, 'sides you saved my ass, the least I could was answer your question, also you did already tell me quite a bit about those Cerberus bastards." I said to her earnestly.

"So Jane, we've talked about Cerberus, and my suit, so how about we talk about you now? You know, so that I know abit about the chick that saved my butt" I asked her, she responded by give me a skeptical look.

"What?" I told her shrugging my shoulders slightly.

"Why all the questions?" asked Shepard to which I merely shrugged once more.

"No real reason, I was just hoping to kill some time, keep the nerves calm. Seemed like the 20 questions game seemed like the best route to go, 'sides I have about 127 years to catch up on, that coupled with the fact that all my friends are long gone, so best make good relations with at least **some** people I might be able to count on." I told her, and she nodded approvingly.

"Well let's see, I born on April 11 2154, but was mostly raised on starships for a large part of my life, both of my parents are Alliance military, so I never really had time to stay, and make friends as often as I'd like, but I guess this made me more sociable than most of the other kids so in the end it was fine I." She started, already sounding like a more interesting person than myself.

"So you're a military brat, and you spent all your time on starships? Man, that sure beats my childhood." I told her to which she smirked smugly.

"Anyways when I turned 18 I immediately enlisted into the Alliance military, deciding I wanted to follow in my parents footsteps…. Well that and I just really got sick of starships; being in the alliance would let me go to so many other places like the Citadel, maybe even the colonies." Continued Shepard, Citadel? I made a mental not to ask about it later.

But right now I had a more interesting question to ask her.

"Hey just where did you get that blue power thing… biotics was it?" I asked her.

"Remember how I told you that my parents transferred to a lot of stations? Well at some point while I was still a fetus, my mom was accidentally exposed element zero, or Eezo. Luckily it did cause her any harm, but it did manage to cause me to subsequently developed Eezo nodules throughout my body."

"These let nodules let me generate and control dark energy to move objects, generate protective barriers, or like you saw awhile back, throw my enemies like rag dolls." She explained, lifting up her right hand, and letting that blue aura form a sphere in her hand, before closing it, dispersing the energy.

"Damn that's something." I said awe very much evident in my voice "So does this Alliance have an entire army, or squad of people like you?" I asked.

She shook her head.

"No, like I said my mother was **accidentally** exposed to Eezo; many times exposure to Eezo doesn't guarantee biotic ability. In fact, most fetuses that are exposed are not affected at all, and others develop brain tumors or other horrific physical complications." She told me.

"So I take it wasn't easy being part of a select few." I told her, to which she shrugged.

"Actually, my biotic powers never manifested until I was 17, after receiving a second dose of Eezo, and after that I got implanted with L3 implants, and before you ask these help my biotic powers do more than just pick a pen, or gently brush several pieces of paper." She explained.

"And I'm guessing there were training programs designed for people with biotic abilities right?" I asked her, to which she nodded no.

"Not during my time no, I had to learn from the older biotics that sticked around from the BAat program." She answered.

"BAat?" I spoke aloud.

"Short for Biotic Acclimation and Temperance Training, it was program set up by the Conatix industries, with support of the Alliance." Explained Shepard.

"At the time the alliance didn't know how to train human biotics, and lucky for them the Conatix industries came up with a solution." Shepard spat out, her last word laced with venom.

"Officially, BAaT's function _was "an evaluation of their abilities so an understanding of biotics could be compiled."_ Total lies. They wanted to make sure that they could their abilities as fast as possible, problem was that Alliance instructors didn't know a damn thing on how to train someone with biotics, and Conatix was happy that their funding wasn't getting any results. They got desperate enough that they hired several turian mercenaries." started Shepard, and already I could this would end badly for someone.

However, one of the biggest things that stood out to me was the word she used to describe the mercenaries, Turian was it?

There was no doubt that these people weren't human, but I wouldn't know more until I asked.

Once again I made a mental note to ask about it, or them at a later time; right now I focused on what Shepard was saying.

"Their training regime was severe, involving the use of hunger and thirst as training aids. I'm not sure if it worked out, but his methods obviously weighed whatever good there was out: several BAaT trainees "snapped" under the strain, and I heard some died as a result. However the worst of it came from the L2 implants." She continued.

"The implants before the ones you had." I said, stating the obvious.

"Yeah you see L3 biotics are consistently stable with moderate ability; while my upper limits might be less than an L2, I'm safe from any dangerous side effects like the severe medical complications such as insanity, mental disability, and crippling pain, all caused by the L2 implants." She explained.

"Can't imagine putting a piece of technology into you head can ever be a good thing." I added, trying to avoid sarcasm, to which she shrugged.

"Like said it was the only to make our biotic powers work effectively." She added.

"But I'm assuming you Alliance managed to given them compensation for this right?" I asked to which she actually gave a look of confusion.

"Well that depends on who you ask, some L2s with say that the alliance has done quite a bit for them, others will say that the Alliance hasn't done enough for them. Me, I liked to think they both have a point." Shepard finished.

"Well, then why don't they get their implants removed?" I asked her

"They can, but it's extremely difficult because the implants are located with the brain. I guess it all boils down to luck. The implants can be removed, but because of their connection to the brain, and the neural system it is extremely difficult, and even more dangerous." She explained.

"Because of how dangerous it is most decide to simply keep the implants they have, even the L2s." said Shepard, and I felt a sort of mixture of both sympathy, and empathy for them.

Much like myself they were trapped in a situation beyond their controlled, forced to live a life not of their choosing, however unlike them I had no fix to my situation, the suit would never come off of me, not after 151 years of symbiosis.

"So the people behind this project had no idea how to even train the kids who had biotics, so they resorted to mercs to pick up the pace, who in turn made their lives a living hell, maybe even killed some of them. Then they stuck implants into their heads, which in turn made their live even worse, and no-body ever sent a message, or something." I said aloud.

"I don't know, my friend told me that they weren't allowed to contact anybody, including their parents, probably to make sure that they weren't distracted." She explained.

"Good news is one of the mercenaries' got what was coming to him." She told me, her voice somewhat relieved

"He get kicked out?" I asked her, but she shook her head.

"No, he managed to piss of one of the trainees, so he broke his neck with one biotic kick, or so they say." She told me as I smirked underneath my helmet.

Nothing like assholes getting what's coming to them.

"You said the project was shut down? Was it because of the merc being killed?" I asked her, though I pretty much knew the answer.

"Dunno; after he was killed the entire project was shut down, any information on it was locked up. Although a year after the Alliance did talk about setting up another biotic training program, The Ascension Project, this one I heard was supposed to be a friendlier program than the other one." She told me.

"What was the difference between the two?" I asked her.

"Unlike BAaT, the Project is not a military exclusive and invites civilian support; it welcomes visits and input from the attendees' families, which BAaT didn't allow. The Ascension Project has three main aims: one, to develop and monitor new L4 implants; two, to work with biotics to maximize their potential in the field; and three, to help them fit in human society. That last aim has an important place on the curriculum, the students are taught philosophical and moral guidance on the responsibilities that come with using biotics." Explained Shepard.

"However, ignoring what I said earlier, The Ascension Project wasn't in response to what happen in the BAaT; its main focus was on the children of the victims of Eezo accidents across the Systems Alliance in 2170, on four separate colonies. In one colony alone there had been at least thirty-seven children who were born with biotic abilities, all of whom were sent to the Ascension Project."

"I'm assuming the project must have been based on some large colony, or an incredibly massive space station. That many biotic kids, they'd need their own school. " I stated.

"Yup, Jon Grissom Academy, founded in 2176, it's the main place where most biotics go to better understand how to properly use, and control their abilities. It's a pretty massive station, about the size of a dreadnought-class ship, maybe a little bigger give or take a few meters." She explained.

Man, the things you miss over a century.

"Well, that was a hell of an explanation, you even managed to tell me quite a bit about those fancy biotics, suck that I can't use them, but I have the Nano-suit so I guess if I had anything more it wouldn't be fair." I said to her, to which she nodded.

"Yeah, if you did you'd probably put me out a job, considering my biotics are tailored to combat." She said.

"I wouldn't go that far, I'm only human after all." I admitted humbly.

"Yeah, a human with a bad-ass super-advanced combat suit." She shot back sarcastically.

"Hey, you're the one with the fancy force powers, I just a suit that's built for pretty much any combat situation imaginable, well, except for biotics, but I'll just have to improvise later." Replied, to which she smugly smirked.

"Yeah, we're not walking squids with fancy guns, gonna take a lot more to take us down than just a fancy suit to take us down." She said leaning over her seat.

"Yeah, yeah whatever." I said to her, to which she laughed.

"So, what's you next question?" She asked me, a question about a question. Heh.

"Why are you so certain I have one? Maybe I just want to enjoy the scenery. You know that special space feeling." I responded sarcastically, much to her obvious chagrin.

She only responded with a raised eyebrow.

"Tough crowd. Tell me how all of **THIS** is possible." Putting heavy emphasis on the word this, using my hands to point out the shuttle.

"You know faster the light speed, traveling to different star systems. All of these things by physics shouldn't be possible, and here I am 127 years later, and the impossible is possible. " I told her to which she let out a long whistle sound.

"Nice question, gonna have to think of a better one for you, now let's see where to start." She said, musing to herself briefly before quickly figuring out what to say.

"Well around the year 2148, human explorers on Mars uncovered a long-ruined Prothean observation post, with a surviving data cache that proved aliens had studied Cro-Magnon humans' millennia ago. While we might have been surprised by the existence of aliens before, after the Ceph showed up, this didn't really surprise many. The only be surprise came from religions who had already had a hard time with the existence of one alien species, and now the inclusion of another one caused even more problems for them. Sorry, getting off track, anyways we also discovered a massive object know as Mass effect Relay which consisted of two fifteen-kilometer long curved metal arms surrounding a set of revolving, gyroscopic rings five-kilometers across was actually frozen as Charon, one of Pluto's moon for thousands of years." She explained, but quickly I took note of something a race of aliens that observed humanity since the Cro-Magnon times, and conveniently let a cache of data on mars.

"Sounds like a dumb idea taking the technology of another race." I said aloud, and Shepard quickly gave me confused look, not understanding what I was saying.

"I'll tell you later, continue please." I told her, and she quickly gave me a wary glance before resuming her explanation.

"This discovery led to our understand of Mass effect technology, which involved the use of element zero. This can increase or decrease the mass content of space-time when subjected to an electrical current via dark energy. With a positive current, the mass is increased, and vice-versa a negative current, mass is decreased.

"So the stronger the current, the greater the magnitude of the mass effect." I stated, quickly grasping the basic science behind this mass effect physic.

"Yeah, and so in space, low-mass fields allow FTL travel as well as surface-to-orbit transit. Then High-mass fields create artificial gravity allowing the for them to push space debris away from starships." She explained, finally finishing.

"Damn, sounds like quite the leap, now how about I tell you the discovery that lead to the creation of the Nano-suit. After all one good explanation deserves another." I told her, to which she gave me another confused look.

"I thought Jacob Hargreave was the creator of the Nano-suit?" She state, to which I nodded.

"Yeah, he was, but that was only part of the story. You see the Ceph had been around for millions of years deep within the earth, dormant for some unknown reason, and they stayed that way throughout most of humanities time on earth that is until 1919." I explained.

"In 1908, there had been an explosion in the Russia, which was known as the Tunguska Event. Officially this was blamed on meteorite fragments'." I said, to which she gave a knowing look in her eye.

"There always more to it isn't there." She said obviously peeved by the lack of truth always presented whenever the word officially was brought up.

"Yeah, anyways at that same time Hargreave discovers strange pieces of technology in Siberia. He didn't know what it was, but he did know that it wasn't of earthly origin, and so had begun his search for answers." I continued.

"The in 1919, Karl Rasch went on a private expedition to investigate the site of the Tunguska Event, determined to find the origin of the technology he'd found, along with his colleagues Hargreave and Walter Gould. The events transpired in Tunguska led to the discovery of the Ceph, but this came at the cost of everyone in the expedition, except for Hargreave, Rasch, and Gould, dead. However, both Rasch, and Gould were seriously injured, but somehow Hargreave was able to carry the other two across the Siberian wastes before being rescued by members of the British expeditionary force operating from Vladivostok. From this all three of them come into possession of alien technology opening new possibilities for them, but this came with the knowledge of the threat the Ceph pose to human civilization. In the intervening years Hargreave quickly began arming, using all his accumulated knowledge on the Ceph's technology in order to create the Hargreave-Rasch Biomedical corporation. This helped make various medical advancements during my time, but it served as front for what he's really doing." I said to her, trying my best not to sound purposefully ominous.

"What were they doing?" She asked me, her voice stoic, and calm.

"He was getting ready for war. The man might have been insane, but he knew how to be prepared for what the future had in store. He built his own private army, giving them the latest weapons, and gear available. He spent the better part of a century prepping him with everything he would need to take on the storm, but he knew that it wasn't enough; he needed an ultimate weapon, a way to turn an ordinary man into a living-anti ceph weapon, and after years of trial, and error, it all culminated in the creation of the first Nano-suit, and after he realized any flaws within his first iteration, he perfected in with the Nano-suit 2.0 the suit I currently have on." I explained.

"That's a hell of a history for a suit, shame we don't have it anymore, after everything that we went through really could've used it." She stated almost solemnly.

"No doubt, but I guess something's happen for a reason, and hey, at least humanity found the remains of another alien race to reverse engineer, no matter how dumb the act may seem." I stated much to her confusion.

"What do you mean dumb-act?" Shepard asked me, giving me a look that looked as if she were offended by what I had said.

"The reason the Ceph-Human war began was because humanity wanted grasp something that wasn't meant to be grasped. We tried to make use of tools that didn't belong to us and in doing so we let in something terrible, something horrifying." I told her, but the look she had given me was still provoked.

"Yes, but this time there was no aliens to be found, no buried aliens' ships, just some data cache that allowed us to leave our cozy system, and venture out into the galaxy. Admittedly, yeah our first contact with beings outside our system could've been better, but we've come a long way on just a few small pockets of data." Shepard rebutted, to which I let out a sigh, my shoulders sagging as I did so.

"I'm not arguing the process of advancement, matter-of-fact the suit is such a thing. What I am saying is that taking something that isn't ours, and trying our very best to make it our own, with little thoughts as to any repercussions, is a dumb-act. Yeah, humanity may have made huge strides in a century, but not on our own gas, on the gas of others." I explained to her.

"But that doesn't make us dumb; it's one of the basic traits of humanity to want to explore the unknown, but to also be cautious of what it may hold within. Humanity knew this, we knew what might happen, but we did it anyways, not without ignoring any dangers, as you might think. The Protheans did this not only for us, but for every other race in the galaxy. They left behind enough for them to set out into the galaxy, and discover the unknown." She continued, she was partially right, or at least had a point.

I doubt if she had seen the Manhattan virus's effect she'd have different opinion on the matter.

Races huh?

It looked as if humanity had entered a real star trek time.

"Fine. Lets agree to disagree. Besides I have a question I've been itching to ask yo-" and before I could finish the comm link within the shuttle open.

_"Lieutenant, approaching the Arcturus Station."_ spoke Ryan, and Shepard immediately stood up, signaling me to follow with a jolt of her head.

Once again I stood in the cockpit of the shuttle, only this time I wasn't talking to a video transmission, I was staring at a massive space station that made me look at it in absolute astonishment, completely pulling me away from the fact that I was in another entirely new star system, something most humans of my time could've only imagined, making it very obvious just how far humanity had come in just a century.

Not only that, but there were several other star-ships around it that were still massive in size.

Shepard quick typed something into the holographic controls.

"This is 2nd Lieutenant Jane Wesley Shepard asking for permission to dock." Said Shepard in a very stoic voice, her military training showing.

For a moment there was a silence, perhaps due to the fact that we were in a Cerberus vehicle.

_"Permission granted, report to Hanagr12."_ stated a voice through the comm.

With that we quickly flew in closer to the station, flying past several of the star-ships, their massive size eclipsing the light from the nearby star in a show of their massive size.

To be honest I hadn't been this nervous since 2047 when I returned back to New York: and I was fighting an entire army of hostile aliens, and humans at the moment!

Finally the shuttle slowed, signaling the end of this rid as we entered into Hangar 12, the same bluish force shield as the Cerberus station passing over the shuttle just briefly before the doors closed behind us.

As the shuttle landed the door that appeared in front of us opened, I walked to one of the side doors, and waited for it to open.

And when it did, I wasted no time getting out, quickly taking note of the hangar, and how the sound of work filled the air.

Looking around I noticed that this hangar was very spacious with several shuttle located around various parts, which were heavily dominated by blue as opposed to the white presented by the one take from the Cerberus station, there were even several Jet-esque vehicles, all located on the several different levels in the hangar.

It was

At the same time there was an equal amount of people throughout, all of them quickly bustling through it, many working on some of the shuttles, others making repairs to the jets', and others more handing one another different pad looking objects, possibly data pads.

Quite the work force.

Just as I continued to observe them, I noticed that one of the works on the second level noticed me, and briefly looked at with an awe struck look, he turned away and nudged another worker, who also looked at me with the same expression of awe, and rapidly two become four, four became sixteen, and then many began looking over the railing at me, many cheering, and others simply waving at me.

This was only the start as many more began to run to railings in a rabid frenzy, almost as if they needed to get a look at me, like I was some religious figure or something.

Ironic if you consider what many called.

Da hell?

"Shepard any reason for that." I asked Shepard, who walked off the shuttle, followed by Ryan, and Alexandra.

"Like I told you, everyone knows who you are." Answered Shepard before turning to the side, and quickly entering salute position, her squad following suit.

"Ten-hut!" said Shepard as I turned, and saw the same man from the Monitor approaching us, accompanied by two other soldiers who probably served as body guards to the man.

"At ease." He said to Shepard's squad who promptly brought down their arms, and quickly looked at me, giving me a quick look over before, saluting me himself.

"Admiral Hackett, Its an honor to meet you Prophet." Hackett said to me his voice full of , as I nodded.

"Pleasure to be here." I responded back to him, just as he brought his hand down.

"I was hoping to talk to you in a more... quiet setting." He said to me, obviously referring to the roaring crowd of workers.

"Then lets go to a more quiet setting shall we." I told him as he nodded before turning around, and walking away, obviously signaling me to follow.

I turned to Shepard.

"You comin'?" I asked her, to which she shook her head.

"I've got a nice hot shower waiting for me, can't keep it waiting." she replied in a titillate tone, to which I smirked underneath my helmet before following the Admiral to where ever it is we were going.

Thats a nice image to have.

* * *

So that Chapter 3, hope you enjoyed it, and I apologize if my describing skills are less then outstanding, its easy to observe something for me, but harder to write a detailed description of it.

Anyways just 2 more chapters until this story hits the Mass Effect story.

With that I thank you for reading, and I hope I can have the next chapter up, and ready soon enough.

**R/F/F _(_Short for Review, Favorite, or Follow)**


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